Day 15 - Three's Company

Ok, so this blog will be blogged early, since I now have reinforcements. It was a very eventful day, and I have lots of photos this time. We learned a lot, we laughed, we cried, we ate pancreas...

I'm blogging before Sam's bedtime because Kathy is here (!!) and she is playing with Sam in the playroom. And, I'm gettin' outta here and having me a cold one this evening. Yep. Doin' that.

Today was "Bronchoscopy Day". Or, B-Day. Our hero was NPO since midnight, meaning he could not eat anything solid by mouth (including his meds) from midnight to 1:30 or so. The great experiment (we've never not fed sam...) went smoothly, since Sam is superhuman and doesn't complain. The only thing he asked for the whole day was some Sour Patch Jelly Beans. Nope, sorry. Ok...

I was a sport and went NPO too. It was difficult. I did however convince a nurse or two to give a cup of their nurse coffee. It was delish.

But, even though we were NPO we still were able to travel. So up to the garden we go. Picture-taking ensued.

Sam in a rare moment of repose.

I friggin' love this one. I have a "swanko" version that is still on my phone for some reason. It's on f-book...

This one is ON THE REAL. ...STLCH represent. 

Mommy showed up around 11:30 (remember, Ozzie is at home with his Nashla and Grandma and Auntie Debbie. Thanks you guys! It takes a village.) Seeing Mommy made Sam very happy, and we cheered up enough to get silly in the room - it was the first time in over two weeks and Daddy and Mommy could hang out together in the same room without two fighting small boys. It was a relief! The above picture is called "toes" for obvious reasons.

Mommy.

This one is rediculously cute, and sums up the moment exactly.  

And so ended the happiness. The mood shifted completely when Sam went down for his bronchoscopy. He was very brave, and wasn't visibly scared until they wheeled him into the procedure room. There was gear everywhere that made scary noises. He cried a little, but the staff here is wonderful. Bubbles got blown, and after we popped a few, the anesthesia took over and he was out like a light (i've never seen this happen before, and wow, it's sudden! Just like that...) That made us sad to leave him like that, but he was in good hands. A nervous 45 minutes later (and I must admit -- I snuck some food in the meantime. Shh...) and our beeper buzzed. Sam was done! 

I took these in the recovery room. It looks worse than it really was. The oxygen is normal for kids who come out of such a thing. 

During the procedure, they took a little tube and a camera and shoved it down his throat. They went into his lungs to find out what there is to find. What did they find? Lots and lots and lots of mucus. The Doctor said there was much more than they had anticipated. He said it was like bubble gum - they would suck it up with the little tube, and it would begin to strand. (CF-ers have thick and sticky mucus. That's the heart of their lung problems.) They sucked out as much as they could. But this just means that Samson's CF right now is at a more severe level than we had anticipated. The antibiotics he has been on is not strong enough to fight what is causing the irritation in his airway. So, it keeps producing more mucus, which he can't get out normally. So, we're on more antibiotics now to try to "redouble our efforts," -- in the words of our CF Doctor this weekend. We are hoping to get him back to baseline soon with new, stronger, more badass drugs. We will know more on Monday when the mucus they collected is tested for bacteria.

It scares us to know that his CF is getting severe. But we are told that it is likely that we can shoot for getting him back to where he was in 2010. We'll just have to work harder. Again, there are two paths here. But now we know what we are up against. 

That CF. She's a bitch, ain't she?

While Sam was recovering, I ran up to the room for some stuff. I saw his shoes on the floor - he never goes anywhere without his shoes. His sad shoes deserved a picture. He's going to be alright.

Sam woke up after a few minutes, and we got him back to his bed. He did great! He woke up coughing (how appropriate) and when we got back to the room -- another surprise! An old friend of mine from grad school sent Sam a Playmobil Knights toy set in a red carrying case (thanks Jesse!) and we dove right in. We played with the little Knights in bed for a while. Sam didn't miss a beat. I said he was tough.

I am still playing around with all these cool camera options I now have at my disposal. Samson was very happy to have Mommy back for a while. You could tell it was a real pick-me-up. We took a time-out for everyone to recover from the past two hours of stress and suction.

FOOD AT LAST! Samson ate like a Survivor Castaway. A Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza, Cheetoes, brownies, milk, and grapes. ...And then a "Sam Dance" in the cafeteria to celebrate.

It was cathartic.

We went up to the garden. Sam was free of the IV pole (He was on it all day. If you're NPO you can't eat, so they give you fluids in a bag. The pole sucks because you can't walk on the stepping stones in the garden). We went to the garden to party. Sam took this one of Mommy and me. 

And I took these. He's sporting a new STLCH shirt I found in the gift shop while he was KO'ed. 

These two couldn't get enough of each other.

It's funny how we got some pretty bad news today, but we still found ourselves happier than we've been in weeks. There's something to be said about being together. It's stronger than you think, even when you're apart. We missed Ozzie (and Mojo) terribly, and talked about him a lot. Seeing Kathy here made me realize how much I had missed her. I can only imagine how it'll feel when all four (or five!) of us are together at one time. 

That's some strong stuff.